Dar es Salaam – A group speaking as ‘Women on behalf of all women in Tanzania’ has called for urgent action to prevent the killing of women, demanding a national femicide data system, swifter responses to threats and accessible protection services after a series of reported deaths this year.
“No reason justifies the killing of a woman,” the group said during a press conference in the city on Thursday. “The right to life belongs to every woman.”
The statement named the 25-year-old volunteer nurse Asha Bakari, Magreth Hamis Richard, Diana Edward Salijo, Jenipher Urassa and Shukrani Riziki among women whose deaths have been reported in 2026.
It said killings by current or former partners, husbands and boyfriends must not be treated as routine crime or excused through jealousy, separation or relationship disputes.
Femicide is an intentional killing with a gender-related motive, a category distinct from homicide generally, according to UN Women. In practice, the exact scale remains difficult to establish because official crime records do not consistently record the relationship between a victim and a suspect, or whether gender-based motives were present.
READ MORE: Lack of Detailed Reporting Hampers Efforts to Address Femicide in Tanzania
Data cited by the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation, recorded 2,438 women killed between 2018 and September 2022. That total cannot, by itself, be treated as a femicide count, but it illustrates why campaigners are pressing for more detailed public records.
The LHRC’s 2025 Human Rights Report documented 25 incidents of intimate-partner violence through its media, social-media and human-rights monitoring, of which 18, or 72 per cent, ended in the death of a partner.
Women made up 72 per cent of the victims and men accounted for most alleged perpetrators, while jealousy was the most frequently recorded trigger, alongside financial disputes and separation.
But LHRC cautioned that its figures are not a national total and that intimate-partner violence is substantially underreported because of fear, stigma, economic dependence and pressure within communities. Its 2025 monitoring found incidents across 11 regions, with stabbing the most common specified method of killing.
In Same District, Kilimanjaro, police and local authorities said Bakari was killed at her home on April 20 after a man described as her partner came to see her. Authorities said the suspect, a boda boda driver, fled and police were searching for him; the case remains under investigation.
On October 5, Mara Regional Police Commander Pius Lutumo said police had detained lawyer Keneth Nkiko, 28, over the death of his girlfriend, Magreth Richard, 22, in Musoma.
Police alleged that Richard was assaulted with a blunt object and stabbed, and said preliminary inquiries pointed to jealousy; Nkiko has not been convicted, and the investigation was continuing.
The statement also followed the October 1 killing of Jenipher Urassa in Bunju, Dar es Salaam. According to reports, her husband, Laurent Kweka, was accused of shooting her, while Minister for Community Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups Dorothy Gwajima publicly expressed sorrow and urged men to control anger.
There have been convictions in killings of women by partners. In February 2025, the High Court in Dar es Salaam convicted businessman Hamis Luwongo of murdering his wife, Naomi Marijani, in Kigamboni in 2019 and sentenced him to death.
Thursday’s women’s press conference argues that criminal proceedings after a death are not enough.
It asks police and investigators to treat threats, repeated assaults, stalking and coercive control as warning signs, assess risk promptly and preserve evidence, while calling on prosecutors and courts to reduce avoidable delays and ensure a suspect’s social position or resources do not affect access to justice.
READ MORE: Student’s Horrific Murder Spotlights Tanzania’s Violence Against Women and Missing Persons Crisis
It also calls for emergency protection, safe accommodation, legal aid, health care and counselling for women at risk. Local leaders, religious leaders and families, it says, should not use reconciliation to replace legal action in serious crimes or pressure women to remain in dangerous relationships.
The demands are directed at systems the government says it is expanding through its National Plan of Action to End Violence Against Women and Children for 2024/25 to 2028/29.
The plan targets a 50 per cent reduction in violence against women by 2028/29 and proposes to increase one-stop support centres from 26 to 52, safe houses from 15 to 52, and Police Gender and Children’s Desks from 420 to all qualified police stations.
The plan also seeks better reporting and statistics, stronger investigation and prosecution, and shorter judicial proceedings. In a joint statement launching the plan, the government and United Nations agencies said prevention, survivor support and coordination across health, justice, education and welfare services would be central to implementation.
For the women of Tanzania, however, as they made it clear on Thursday, the immediate measure of progress is whether those commitments translate into early protection before violence becomes fatal, and whether official data can show where those protections fail.
